Friday Video: Color Outisde the Lines: A Tattoo Documentary.

Filmmaker Artemus Jenkins. From Kickstarter.

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This week’s Friday video is somewhat related to our ongoing Arkansas Tattoo Project research.  (If you want to know more about this project, go here to see all the recent posts.  You can also follow the project on Facebook and Twitter)

In researching various tattoo styles and forms of expression, I came across this Kickstarter video for an upcoming documentary.  Produced by Artemus Jenkins, Color Outside the Lines:  A Tattoo Documentary explores the work, culture, and styles the African American tattoo artists and their clients. It looks like it will also address the need for more black tattoo artists and some of the problems within the industry, including the prevalence of shops owned by white supremacists.

It looks really interesting.  Have you heard about it?   What are some of the tattoo documentaries you’ve seen and which ones would you recommend?

The Seed and the Story for January 25, 2012: Visiting with Bud Rector

Bud Rector and J.L. Martin Chickalah, Arkansas, 2012

The Seed and the Story is a bi-weekly column exploring folklife, sustainability, oral history, human rights,and community in Yell County, Arkansas.   The column is published in the Post Dispatch and is syndicated in the Courier.  Please remember to support your local paper and independent media!

You can follow the Boiled Down Juice on Facebook and Twitter.  If you enjoy our posts, please tell a friend. And thanks for reading!

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Before I get into this week’s column, I want to thank all those who called or wrote in response to the previous column about the history of Chickalah.  It’s such an honor to hear from readers with memories and stories to share, and I’m thankful to all of you who took the time to tell me about the places you call home.  I learned from Carolyn Garner that back in the 1940s people would gather to watch outdoor movies on the back wall of Neal Cowger’s Chickalah store.  And I had several people tell me about the rural baseball league from the area, including the days when the Dean brothers lived on Chickalah Mountain.  So this week’s column is a continuation of the recent Chickalah research and will highlight just few stories I learned from a man many of you know and love: Bud Rector.

My father and I recently had the opportunity to visit with Bud in his home on Harkey’s Valley road in Chickalah where we were greeted by his friendly dog who got up from her cozy front porch chair to come say hello.  Bud Rector was born in 1914 and has lived in the Harkey’s Valley area all of his life.  He’s hauled logs in the timber woods, raised chickens and cows, worked for the WPA, driven the rural bus route for Dardanelle Schools for decades, and traveled throughout the area singing in a gospel quartet.  He’s also an excellent storytelling and a joy to be around.  I can’t begin to do justice to all his stories in this short column, so I’ll just highlight a few.

For decades the Chickalah area was home to a thriving timber economy, and Bud recalled many of the early logging operations and sawmills that dotted the mountains.  He and my father swapped memories of those days when, as Bud recalled, “everybody was going around with the chopping ax and cross cut saw.”  While my father recalled skidding logs, Bud and his brother Buford found work hauling the lumber to town.  He mentioned his short stint with the WPA where men were given shovels to help dig out the bluff and told of the well known store in Sulpher Springs operated by a man with, quite possibly, one of the best names I’ve ever come across: Bonaparte Rutledge.  Come to find out, my own grandparents were married in front of Mr. Rutledge store.

Thanks your suggestions, I was sure to ask him about the rural baseball leagues that were so popular in the area during the 1930s and 1940s.  He recalled teams from Spring Creek, Chickalah Mountain, Chicklalah Village, Slo Fork, Pisgah Casa, Sulpher Springs, Ard, and Harkey’s Valley, the team for which he played.  While he never had the chance to play with Dizzy, he did play with Paul and their younger brother, often known as “Poodle.” The teams played at places like the old Gatley ball field near Sulphar Springs and in numerous cow pastures all around the county.  Readers might recall the team’s manager Pete McMullan and some of well-known players like Burt Tucker, Roger Harkey, Grover Martin, John Martin, and Ame Bates.

In the near future I’ll have some of the audio of Bud up online so you listen you to Bud telling these and other stories in his own words.   Do you remember the ball teams, the logging woods, or Bonepart’s store?  I’d love to hear from you!  A very special thank you to Mr. Bud Rector for allowing me to visit and share some of his stories here.

Arkansas Tattoo Project Update

Native Arkansan, Rapper Cboddy of Little Rock with the Little Rock symbol and ARK in graffiti-style letters.

From Cboddy:  ”I was doing shows from state to state and I got to represent where I’m from in a way.  And what better way than to put the official Little Rock logo stamped on my arm.”  

Discussing what he loves about Arkansas: “Everybody knows everybody, so to me I look at everybody like family.  Everybody is so open-armed, to me anyway.”

Recently we began a documentation project examining the diversity of ways people choose to represent their home state of Arkansas on their body.   The project is in its beginning stages, and we’ve taken the documentation process online so it can be community-driven and grow organically.

Since we started the online Facebook version of the Us Tattooed Kids:  Arkansas Project last week, thirty-six tattoo photos have been submitted and we have 236 likes!  We also started a Twitter account for the project, which you can follow here.  I’ve also been doing interviews with as many people as possible—either online or in person—and many of these stories will be featured in the upcoming article.  In case your unfamiliar with the project, you can go here to read all about it.

Here are just a few photo updates we’ve received and a glimpse into some of the things people are saying about their tattoos and the larger concept of Arkansas as home.  If you know of someone with an Arkansas tattoo, please spread the word.  We want to hear from you!  To read more and join the conversation, visit us online on facebook or Twitter.

Basic state outline uploaded by John Crouch, a native Arkansan and classical composer who now lives in Maryland.

From an email interview with Crouch:  ”I had been saying for about a year that I wanted it. I don’t know if I would have gotten it if I still lived in Arkansas, but living in Baltimore for 6+ years made me miss Arkansas.”      ”After high school in Springdale, my formative early adult years were spent in Fayetteville. Now I’ve lived in Baltimore for six and a half years and I’m still amazed at how much more interesting and progressive a small Southern town can be than a fairly large Northeastern (technically, to some, a Southern Mid-Atlantic) city. I’ve had more than one instance of proclaiming the virtues of my small college town and how it adopted progressive causes and issues years prior to Baltimore.”

Here’s a few more images that have been posted to the site.  We’re still waiting to learn more about them.  But the images are pretty strong as is.  What’s your story?  

Submitted by tattoo artist, Scott Diffee. Waiting for more info on this tattoo.

I've been wondering if there are other city specific tattoos besides Little Rock. There are! Tattoo by Scott Diffee at the Parlor.

Skyline of LR. Tattoo by Scott Diffee.

Friday Video: Rest in Peace Etta James

Decided to scratch the Friday Video I had planned for today.  Rest in peace, Etta James.  Thank you for your music.

Director Sharon La Cruise Discusses the Film, “Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock.

Film maker Sharon La Cruise. From PBS.

Last week’s Friday Video was a preview of the upcoming film Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock.  Today on the University of Arkansas campus director of the film, Sharon La Cruise, will preset the film and answer questions.

Yesterday Ozarks at Large’s Antoinette Grajeda spoke with La Cruise about the making of the film including her research in Little Rock, her quest to discover why Daisy Bates was not initially seen as potential leader of the movement, Bates’s life as a social and political radical, and a her role in the desegregation of Central High.

“Daisy Bate’s life” La Cruise says, “is the classic example that life really is like ten percent of what happens to you and ninety percent of how you handle it.  Because that is how she lived her life because she could have had many options as far a path she could have went down considering where she came from and what she went through.  And she made a decision to do good with her life.  I’m hoping she’ll be inspirational to young adults….”

To listen to the entire interview go here and click on the link.

In case you missed the Friday Video here it is again.  Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock will be airing nationally on February 2nd at 9:00 pm on the PBS series, Independent Lens.  The presreening will be held today at 2:00 PM at the Reynolds Center on the U of A campus.   The event is hosted in connection with Martin Luther King Jr. week and organized by the University Libraries and Diversity Affairs.

A Few New Tattoo Photos from the Us Tattooed Kids: Arkansas Project

This project is an outgrowth of an article and radio piece that are both in the works.  Due to the large response this research,  the project has grown to a more interactive format and will hopefully continue to grow and grow.  You can help us out by spreading the word.  Thanks!  

Follow the project here:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Us-Tattooed-Kids-Arkansas-Project/341024649259834  

  To read more about this project check out the previous post  or this post about how the project started.

Here are just a few new photos being sent to Facebook.  To see more go here.  The Tumblr page is in the works.  Stay tuned for that.

Here’s on from Rick Millard of Dardanelle, Arkansas, one of a few out there that have the Black Flag symbol merged with the state outline.

From Rick Millard. Tattoo by Ramses Shadow in Memphis. 2003.

From an email interview with Rick:  “To me Arkansas is the most geographically unique state that exists, and correct me if I’m wrong but what other states have: A delta region, mountains, plains, timberlands, all in the same state?, there isnt another state like this. plus Arkansas is the only place you can mine for Diamonds. there are so many wonderful people here, and places to visit, live and spend time. I could go on and on.”

And here’s one uploaded to the group from Benjamin Singleton.  

From Benjamin Singleton. Tattoo by Caleb Pritchet at Electric Heart in Little Rock.

From his facebook post: “For me, the most important aspect is the concept of home… thanks to caleb at electric heart for the design and application.”

~ Stay tuned for the article and the radio piece…..after that, who knows?

Follow the project here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Us-Tattooed-Kids-Arkansas-Project/341024649259834

Arkansas Tattoo Project Expanding: US Tattooed Kids Page

From US Tattooed Kids: Arkansas Project. Photo of Cheyenne Matthews' Arkansas Tattoo by Electric Heart Designs.

If you like what you read here, you can follow the Boiled Down Juice on Facebook and Twitter.  Thanks for reading!

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The Arkansas Tattoo Documentation Project is expanding!  In addition to the oral histories I’m compiling and upcoming article I’m working on, for a while now I’ve been thinking about how this project should be more community-driven and interactive.

And then the perfect opportunity presented itself.  Last week while interviewing several people at Pizza D’s in Little Rock, I got to talk to Cheyenne Matthews, host of Shoog Radio on KABF 88.3 FM, a show which showcases Arkansas music. When I mentioned the possibility of a Tumblr site, she ever-so-kindly offered to set up a Facebook and Tumblr page and serve as a co-admin so that more and more people can get involved in submitting their photos and telling their stories.  How cool is that?  She also came up with the names on the page, “Us Tattooed Kids: Arkansas Project,” which sounds way better than my ever-so drab, “Arkansas Tattoo Documentation Project.”  haha.  I’m really thankful she’s a part of this project.

The first phase of research will be an article and an audio montage of oral histories.  But I’d love to see this become a full-length book with portrait photography, quotes from interviews, and the like.   If these pages take off I think this could be a real possibility. So if that’s something you’re into, you can help us out by getting involved in the project and uploading your photos and stories.  It will be amazing to see the diversity of tattoos and reasons behind them.

In the beginning these pages will serve as part of the larger research project, but they’ll also have a life of their own and will provide people with an easy way of sharing tattoo images and stories.  The great thing about such sites is they’re so organic.  So we’ll see where it goes.  While folks are sharing their photos and stories perhaps these sites will also serve as platform to discuss what Arkansas means to all of us, both individually and collectively.

The Tumblr site is still in the works, but the facebook page is up and running and a few people have already uploaded photos.  And the response has been great.  In less than 24 hours we’ve got 70 likes.

So, please visit the facebook site, “like” the project and submit your own photos and stories.  Go here to check it out and please help us spread the word!   And if you want to know more about the back story of this project, go here.
Once the tumblr site is up I’ll post that too.

Thanks for reading and thanks so very much to Cheyenne Matthews for her enthusiasm and help!

Sincerely,

Meredith Martin-Moats

Happy MLK Day. From the “Riverside” Speech and Nina Simone’s Why? (“The King of Love is Dead.”)

From Americans Who Tell the Truth . Click on photo to visit site.

Here are two videos in honor of MLK day. This first video is one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s lesser known speeches speaking out against war and poverty.  Although MLK is talking specifically about the Vietnam War, the message that war is an enemy of the poor, of community, of democracy is just as timely, radical, and relevant today.

From the speech:

Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years, especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

And the second video—this song was recorded by Nina Simone three days after Martin Luther King’s death.   Happy Martin Luther King Day.  May we all keep working toward the dream.  Thanks to Americans Who Tell the Truth for reminding us of this video.

Friday Video: Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock.

From the U of A page. Daisy Bates with six of the Little Rock Nine. Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock. Courtesy of Independent Television Service, 2012.

I’m super excited about this week’s Friday Video, a trailer for the upcoming film, Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock.

Produced by Sharon La Cruise, this film will makes its debut on February 2, 2012 on PBS’s Independent Lens.

If you live in Fayetteville, however, you can catch a pre-screening of the film Thursday January 19 at 2:oo PM at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.  The event is hosted in connection with Martin Luther King Jr. week and organized by the University Libraries and Diversity Affairs.  After the screening, producer and director Sharon La Cruise, “will discuss the documentary filmmaking process as well as the social and historical issues the film brings to focus.”  If you live in the northwest Arkansas area this is a great opportunity.  If you get a chance to attend the event please let us know because we’d love to perhaps do a follow up post about the event.

Here’s more on the film.  Continuing from the University of Arkansas press release:

Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock tells the story of a seven-year journey by La Cruise to unravel the life of the Arkansas civil rights activist Daisy Bates. Beautiful, glamorous and articulate, Bates was fearless in her quest for justice, stepping into the spotlight to bring national attention to civil rights issues. Unconventional and  strong-willed, she became a household name in 1957 when she fought for the right of nine black students to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock. Her public support divided the Little Rock community and the state itself – culminating in a constitutional crisis that pitted President Dwight D. Eisenhower against Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus. 

To read the press release in its entirety click here.  

Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock premieres on the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens on Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 9 p.m.http://newswire.uark.edu/article.aspx?id=17459

“Compost Cuisine”: Article from AlterNet.org

From Alternet.org

I just came across this article via Rodele’s facebook feed, and I love, love, love it.  Ever feel like there has to be a way to make more use of the those scarps headed for the compost pile or down the drain?  Well, here’s your inspiration.

Exploring a movement called “compost cuisine,” this article written by Anneli Rufus for Alternet examines creative ways chefs are finding ways to use food that might typically wind up in the compost pile.  From the article:

Such waste-not ingenuity is part of a new movement among chefs who are taking sustainability to new heights by gazing into the depths: that is, at what would otherwise be deemed not fit to eat. While we’ve heard of snout-to-tail, “whole-animal” restaurateurship, the practice of creating fabulous dishes from stems, seeds, skins and other usually discarded plant parts gives “bottom of the food chain” a whole new meaning.

“When you have high respect for how things are raised and produced, you’re not going to throw any parts of them away if you can help it,” says Baker, who was named Esquire magazine’s 2010 Chef of the Year and is the executive chef at Gather restaurant – also in Berkeley. “If we’re using the whole animal, then why not use cauliflower leaves, carrot peels, corncobs and cornsilk?”

So, what kind of ways are they using the would-be scraps?  The article is full of example.  Here’s just one:

At Origen, Leighton and co-owner Daniel Clayton boil fruit cores and peels into syrups to use in sodas and cocktails. Ditto fennel fronds. Bumpy Brussels-sprout ends, spinach stems and other typically discarded produce parts are boiled into stock, puréed into mousses, diced and sautéed and served au gratin.  

Read this and all the other examples by clicking here.

What are some ways you keep food out of the compost pile?  Here’s a post we did a while back about an idea for over-ripe peaches.  Tell us your ideas!  We’d love to include them here.